Enter Oblivion
by archergwen
Summary: Was it too much to ask that Dezda find the Daedra she was meant to serve? Follows "Prelude to Madness." Now complete. Sequel to eventually follow.
1. Chapter 1

_"When thou enterest into Oblivion, Oblivion entereth into thee." -Nai Tyrol-Llar, The Doors of Oblivion_

I was born in the fires of late summer. The sky burned orange and red for the clouds. Rain was promised but would not come.

I was raised to worship the Daedra. My mother loved Azura. She longed for me to serve her, the mother of our race. But I was drawn to destruction, not creation. She should have seen the skies; I know someone did, else how would I know I was born under such omens?

When she taught me to get blood off all fabrics, I don't think she thought I'd use it for more than a woman's purposes.

"Dezda, whatever are you doing up? Is that blood?"

"It's nothing, Mother. Go back to sleep."

"It's not your time. How did blood get on your sleeves?"

"Go to sleep, Mother."

She doesn't know what it's like, to chase after satisfaction even as it eludes you, over and over again just when you think it's within your grasp and you hunger for that release that a blade in the dark can only manage for so long-. She has my father and my siblings. They provide the perfect picture she so longs for when she looks at me.

I roared, as a child, when she first tried to get me to talk.

They know what I do, deep down. They don't disagree. They can't go against the Daedra after all. They cannot fight the Whispering Lady, Mephala. Perhaps they also fear one of the Tong will come for them if they make a fuss.

Folly. They may not understand me, but they're still my family. I would slay a dragon for them, if they still existed.

Maybe I didn't cry enough, when the Red Mountain exploded and destroyed everything, separating me from my family.

I certainly shed enough tears when the Morag Tong dissolved.

Now I am lost, wandering in some strange forest, uncertain of where to go, where to listen. One day, they say, one day the Tong will reform in Tamriel. We will continue the balancing act Mephala required. We will destroy the followers of Sithis, too, if our Lady is generous.

It doesn't matter to me, though I will never confess it. I search still for the destruction, the chaos. The contracts for the Tong sated my thirst, but never quenched it. Perhaps now is my chance. I will succeed. That I feel. That I know.

"Halt in the name of the Empire!"

May Mephala make your deaths slow. But with Imperial steel threatening my very important windpipe, I raised my hands in surrender anyway.

* * *

_ Jyggalag reached out his hand, and the Hero of Kvatch knew no more._

* * *

__"When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you." Frederich Neitzsche __


	2. Chapter 2

With steel in my hands, life is always better. It doesn't matter that this damnable city is burning down around me, or that everyone here probably would kill me if they got an inkling of my skill set. But it's alright. I could always take them to Oblivion with me.

I don't need a guide to escape the place that tried to kill me. My feet have always led me well, and today is no exception. Some man has followed me, however. I killed the bear when he wouldn't.

Seeing the sky again, and that helpful dragon fly away, one name leapt to my lips.

"Riften."

"What?" he asked, that charming lilt of Skyrim in full effect.

"Which way takes me to Riften?"

He paused, as if searching his memory, before he pointed somewhat back the way we came. "It's on the other side of those mountains. Be careful though, it's a seedy city and a lone woman-"

My blades were at his throat. "Do I look as though I need protecting?"

"No, but it never hurts to be careful. Riften won't take it easy on you just because you're alone. Just trying to be helpful."

I draw back, tucking the steel away. "Thank you, for all the help you will give me. It is kind of you to help a stranger when a dragon is threatening."

"Um, that was in the past."

I blink. Twice. "Forgive me; I am not a native speaker of the Common Tongue. The sense of time in this tongue remains difficult for me." That is only half a lie. I have problems with time in every language. My companions in the Morag Tong learned long ago not to blink when I referred to the past as the future and vice versa. I feel so out of time, as if I do not belong here. The only language where I can get time right is the language of Oblivion, the tongue of the Daedra. So when I'm dead, I'll have no problem conversing with the Princes.

The blond Nord and I part amicably enough. I think he still feels insulted that I would threaten his life. But what's a backstabbing between friends? It's only bad if one ends up dead.

I make my way over the mountains, through whatever the land of Skyrim sees fit to throw at me. The Nords might say an Aedra was looking out for me. We Dunmer know better. The Aedra aren't just banned from interfering, they are too weak. It is the Daedra, the ones that saved their strength from the creation of Nirn that have to power to interfere.

You, the one that listens, who are you?

* * *

_The swirling changing orange of Oblivion was the first thing Sheograth saw._


	3. Chapter 3

Pockets heavy, I crawl back from the mill towards Riften. The guild has accepted me, not without trepidation. But I am silent, stealthy, so they like me.

I do not hang close to the shore where there is no cover. Instead, I creep along the mountain side, looking for all the world like a simple forager. The brown leathers of the Thieves Guild help me seem more hunter than assassin. I am not used to this.

I have also learned people recognize this affiliation by dress more than aura. There is no sense about those of the guild. Thievery does not touch your soul like death.

As I pass a small indent in the mountains, the world shifts.

Now everything is black, blue, and purple. It feels more right than I am used to the world feeling. But still, wrong. I turn around, instinctively, and am rewarded with the personification of a Daedric Prince, choosing to appear as a woman. Her dress was cut for scandal, but I focus more on the ravens. The birds look a little murderous.

A thin hand shoots out, grabbing my chin sharply. Her fingernails are like claws as she turns my head from side to side.

"You are certainly talented enough. You don't need my luck to succeed, but I enjoy seeing what you do when I lend it to you." She chuckled, naturally sounding dark. Her eyes have a look, like she's just waiting for the right moment to devour. "If only you did not taste of death." Her lips curl, and she pushes me back without releasing her grip. "Take your spoils of this trip and run, elfling. Do not return to my guild. I would that you had been free to be mine. But since you cannot, I will find another to change their luck, before time runs out."

She finally let go, but the feeling of her nails remained. "I cannot tell you where to find who it is you seek. That would be to cheat. And I will not play his game. But perhaps, if you go to Windhelm, and enter the house of the Arentino boy, perhaps you will find what you are looking for."

As the rest of the colors returned to view, and the woman twisted in on herself, becoming little more than a black and purple mass of energy, she chuckled again. "When you see her, tell the Night Mother that Nocturnal sent you."

When a Daedra tells you to go, you do. I am glad it is not Hircine that told me to run. I would loathe to be the prey for the Lord of the Hunt.

* * *

_With the chaos in his mind, the one thought that Shegorath knows belongs to both warring factions is that Mehrunes Dagon is king of idiots._


	4. Chapter 4

My hand is on the door of the cold house in the cold city of Windhelm.

This city is dark in so many ways. I can feel it in my bones. It is corrupted by divisions etched by the man who leads. His ambition and twisted heart leaks through the stones, running like little rivers through the cracks. Even in the Grey Quarter it runs, though there it is his desperation, his hopeless fight against a larger foe that has seeped into their bones.

I want to gather them for the Tong, for our Lady the Spinner. But how can I, when I am considering stealing a kill from the Brotherhood?

It is that thought, that realization that a Daedric Prince sent me here, that thought gives my hand the strength to open the door, to walk in and interrupt the small child playing in games too big for him. I admire his guts all the same.

It is no matter to sneak back into Riften through the docks. I time everything right and slip into Honorhall without the Thieves Guild noticing me. Perhaps Noctural still looks out for me. Or was that Mephala?

Here's hoping they know to share.

By the Red Mountain, I have missed that sweet feeling of sliding the knife between ribs.

I waited for the woman to be alone, of course. She may be horrible, but no child should see death unready.

I still long for the Tong. We were not just bloodthirsty blades in the dark like the Dark Brotherhood. We have no crazed rituals to the empty Void. No, we work within limits, assassins to keep order, to bring justice. The Spinner guides us. Maybe she is not the Daedra that calls to my soul, for she never seems to satisfy, but she is close enough. There is a certain chaos to dealing death that I appreciate.

I do not appreciate awakening in an unfamiliar room with nothing but sackcloth and a knife. Oh, and the woman on the bookshelf, not to mention the three bound prisoners before me.

She speaks confidently, too confidently. If I knew were my possessions were, I would slit her throat.

"You stole our kill," she says, as if it is unprecedented. "A debt must be paid. There's a contract out on one of those three. It's up to you to choose which one. They'll answer questions if you ask."

Twirling the blade around my fingers, I touch the shoulders of the human male. He begins to babble, but I don't care, and the knife tastes first blood in his back, cutting off his air. He dies silently.

The woman speaks harshly, of family and children. I slit her throat.

The Khajiit, I dance the knife lightly over his fur with my fingers as well, throwing an arm over his neck. He purrs, spilling his sly, conniving personality. Before I can grow tired of his talk, I bury the blade in his belly, twisting his head for good measure.

Astrid wants to clap.

"I am a member of the Morag Tong."

"You kill like a professional. The invitation still stands, if you can stomach joining our 'humble' group." She hates me, but gives directions anyway.

Perhaps I will follow her. I haven't been able to sate this hunger yet. It is possible the Brotherhood is the answer that Nocturnal meant, though she could not say it straight for some reason.

* * *

_Sheogorath laughed at his fellow Princes, who all had souls wandering free through the broken boundaries while his stayed loyal (to the death, indeed, though the strawberry torte no doubt helped)._


	5. Chapter 5

"Now that you are safe, let's talk about you."

I have no desire to discuss anything with the corpse or spirit of a woman who committed infanticide, but I think I stopped having a choice long ago. So I calm the rage in my stomach and quiet my mind.

"Quite simply, you do not belong here. Save the sass, little Dunmer. It is not because you once served the Morag Tong, or any other Daedra. It is not due to the blood running through your veins. There's a particular thing that calls to your soul, though I believe the call has gotten slightly lost amid your habits. I will help you, if you swear to serve as Listener until another worthy can be found. You honored the position of Speaker, never mind your opinion of the man himself."

"I do swear."

"Excellent. The contract on the Emperor must still be honored. And up the stairs out the grotto, you will find a new contract to the right. What you seek, dear, belongs to the always changing. It makes not its home in the eternal unchanging, and not within the transient."

"Oblivion then, the eternal change."

The Night Mother seems proud of me for my guess, though any educated Dunmer would know the answer.

"Then you understand one who stands outside the Void calls you, with a bond the Dread Father will respect, even if he longs for all souls to return to him. You understand that though you have been dear to me, I cannot continue to spin a web about you that you might hide. Now you must sleep, and rest. Your Family will come to let you out soon enough."

"Wait, what you said- are you Mephala?"

"I am the Night Mother. But perhaps I have a different nature. Perhaps it is the name we use that gives a thing its nature. Truth can be buried in centuries of myth. The question is, does perception change reality?"

I want to answer, to defend the unchanging reality of Nirn, but my eyes will not stay open nor will words come to my mouth.

My sleep is dreamless. When I awake, Babette and Nazir are calling me forth. I leave them behind, following the stairs the Night Mother directed me to take.

Astrid, or what's left of her, tells me everything. I calmly tell her that Cicero, as Speaker and member of the Black Hand, is still alive. That Sithis would not take his death. And when she murmurs "treachery for treachery," that is when I take her blade and stop her heart. It is the death I meant for her long ago in the bloody shack.

Now I will kill an Emperor and bring chaos upon an already unstable Empire.

You, you who listens, you must be of Oblivion. Please lead me to you, before I go insane.

* * *

_It is the soul of a woman, dancing madly to no music through the tears in Oblivion, that attracts his eye._


	6. Chapter 6

It was all too easy to lure the mercenary up the winding steps to Boethiah's altar. It helped when I told him we were killing anyone we found up there.

The cultists fell swiftly, though not without a fight.

And after silence fell, following the voice of Boethiah, I was the only living thing to be found. Anyone I found up that mountain was dead.

Now I am clad in the embrace of She-Who-Erases. I am her deceiver, and she rewards me with life. But again, I am left feeling empty, until a man manages to stop my dagger with the story of a knife and a Daedric Prince who sought to conquer Tamriel.

His name is like a homecoming: _Mehrunes Dagon._

I kill for this blade, sliding into homes in the dark of night. The owners are shaken awake. If they answer they keep their lives. Those that don't, lose pieces of themselves until I have what I need and they lie dead.

I will be destruction for this one. He will be the one. I know it. He has to be.

So I climb the steps of his mountain with the curator, anticipation humming in my veins.

When Dagon speaks, it echoes into my very soul. I will not lie; his voice is enticing. It feels like a dream that I should follow, the path etched for me long before I was born. It is no hard task, turning on the man who brought me here. If a Daedric Prince asks, must not a mortal obey? Dagon rewards me for all the destruction I have caused with his Razor.

I will be honest. He is not the homecoming I expected. Even as I feel right at home destroying the Demora, something feels off, unsettled.

So I wander, creeping through the dark, pricking fools with the Razor. I watched with equal amounts of glee as they jumped, blaming bugs, or inexplicably fell to the ground, stone cold and dead.

Still, I desire more.

When a man in a walled city called Solitude presses a bone into my hands, it takes all my resolution not to destroy him. Instead, I slink towards the Blue Palace, to find this muttering man's "master."

* * *

_He wraps her in change to shield her from other eyes. This soul he is entranced by he cannot keep without breaking a few rules. He reaches for the magic anyway as she follows a long, a kite all too willing. She can sense his power after all._

_For the magic to come to fruition, he tosses her from Oblivion, sets her adrift into the seas of time though he aims her at a young couple with one child already._

_He does not see what becomes of her. His duties entrap him. Time blinds him._

_He does not see the Heir to the Seat of Sundered Kings, begin to move._

_He does not see the Dragon of Time respond._

_He does not see the Dragon reach out and touch his lady's soul, leaving a touch of gold no being could ever erase._


	7. Chapter 7

It is curious.

An empty, abandoned wing of a palace can lead directly to the mind of a dead man.

His mind is crazed.

A huge banquet table sits at the crossroads of three paths. There is food heaped to chaotic heights. And yet, the master of this table seems only interested in torte.

He is fuzzy, out-of-focus, and remains totally uninterested when he proclaims her a possible champion. He hands her a stick and bids her pick a path, tells her to break the madness that enslaves the dead Pelegius, or whomever.

This is supposed to be challenge.

Ha. I doesn't need his advice to know to take out the man across the ways from me instead of the atronachs. These little quests harness the destruction that drew me to Mehrunes Dagon. But they also illuminate some other quality. I smile when the wolves turn on her opponent and his atronach falls, but it's not at the blood. It's not blood-lust that draws this grin. But what do I care? I won. One out of three is complete.

I bring this dead king peace in his undead sleep. I bolster his confidence. Perhaps it takes more work than I would usually give. But each time I wave the stick and things go my way, the master of this realm grows more interested.

He must be a Daedra. But why can I not think his name?

When the last of the madness is cured, I once again stand before the banquet, empty-handed.

The smooth man whose words I forget even as they slip into my ears seems to smile. He once again offers me the stick, only this time it is beautiful. It is clearly defined in my hands and I can see the carvings. He called it the Wabbajack.

"-be my champion. Spread madness throughout Tamriel."

"I accept."

My hand reaches forward. In the split-second before my hand wraps around the strange weapon, my mind registers that I have had no trouble discerning the proper time. I know where I am. I feel at home.

Then I am grasping the Wabbajack. The man offering me the stick snaps into focus as the token of his favor warms my palm.

He is madness.

He is not destruction but insanity. He is a fool yet also incredibly wise. He breaks illusions and reality because sometimes madness is better than sanity. He's nothing but clouds and lettuce and the questions that hurt to answer because to tell the truth you have to lie. He'll rip apart your idea of how the world works and if you're lucky he'll hand it back to you in once piece. I see a gray-haired man in an impeccable purple suit at the same time I see a million faces. He's cheese and contradictions.

He is Sheograth.

"You," we say together. The world around us blurs.

* * *

"My _fhionnusice_."

"My Lord."

We stare at each other, the Daedric Prince and the Dunmeri maiden with too many claims on her soul. Though Noturnal did reject her, and the Night Mother said Sithis had no claim. Perhaps that security applied to the others.

"You've been busy."

"You've eaten too much strawberry torte."

His eyebrows raise a fraction as he takes her in. "It only took you a few hundred years and several heart-broken Daedra to get here. I'm a little disappointed."

"I'm sorry that your little spell didn't let me remember who I was searching for."

Sheogorath shrugs. "I made the rules how I like them. Maybe I'll change them next time."

A knife is in my hand before I know it, and I brandish it at him with the Wabbajack. "Don't you dare drag me through Oblivion and back, then leave me for someone else. I will find a way to slay a Daedra."

"You do remember., phoenix."

I smirk.

This is when a dragon, smaller and lighter in color than the first I tangled with, roars in the sky. It assumes that both Sheogorath and I are mortal, that we are easy prey, and it thus alights near-by and attacks.

I was not trained to fight something that much larger than me, yet I do so anyway. My knives are in the dragon's wings and eyes before it can think. I scramble up the dragon, ripping my blades out violently and stabbing them in again. It is a fight to dominate, to destroy, and I do not stop dodging and stabbing until the dragon lies dead at my feet.

When I turn to boast to Sheogorath, I am enveloped by golden light. A strange word I once saw on a dungeon wall leaps to my mind and I scream it out.

Sheogorath looks at me and utters one word.

"Shit."


End file.
